The developer of the world’s first FDA-cleared, smartphone-powered kidney test won in the Best in Class – Home Health Diagnostic category for increasing access to Chronic Kidney Disease testing

BOSTON, Oct. 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Healthy.io is proud to announce its selection as a Winner of the 2024 Digital Health Hub Awards, hosted by The Digital Health Hub Foundation at the renowned HLTH global healthcare conference. Healthy.io earned the esteemed Digital Healthy in the Best in Class – Home Health Diagnostic category. Healthy.io’s General Manager Becca LaFond and VP of Strategy and Partnerships Adam Russell were on-site to accept the award.

This recognition highlights Healthy.io’s commitment to expanding access to kidney disease testing for vulnerable populations. With an estimated 35 million U.S. adults affected by chronic kidney disease (CKD)—of which about 90% remain undiagnosed—there is a critical need to democratize access to testing. Healthy.io’s Minuteful Kidney test, the first FDA-cleared kidney test powered by a smartphone, provides instant access to clinical-grade results and allows at-risk people to test their kidney health from home. The Digital Health Hub Awards honor Healthy.io’s achievements in leveraging digital technologies to improve testing and patient outcomes.

“We are honored to be recognized by the Digital Health Hub Foundation for our work empowering patients through accessible testing solutions,” said Geoff Martin, CEO at Healthy.io. “At Healthy.io, our mission has always been to break down barriers to care, and with our smartphone-powered Minuteful Kidney test, we’re bringing life-saving diagnostics to those who need them most. This recognition motivates us to continue pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in home health diagnostics.”

The Digital Health Hub Awards, presented at the prestigious HLTH conference, are a highly competitive honor in the health tech space, with around 5,000 submissions in 2024. The HLTH conference, known for being one of the largest and most influential events in the healthcare industry, attracts thousands of attendees, including industry leaders, policymakers, and investors.

“The competition this year has been extraordinary, with an overwhelming number of submissions from groundbreaking companies worldwide. We congratulate our winners whose innovations have truly impressed our esteemed panel of judges. The Digital Health Hub Foundation looks forward to witnessing the profound impact our champions continue to make in the healthcare space.” said Mark H. Goldstein, Chairman and Founder of The Digital Health Hub Foundation.

About Digital Health Hub Foundation:
Our mission is to support the world’s most innovative healthcare companies in scaling and growing. Since 2017, our 30,000-member community has been dedicated to fostering innovation, including early-to-late-stage healthcare companies, industry providers, payors, mentors, and investors. Through our annual awards, we bring together the healthcare industry to celebrate and validate the best of the best in health technology.

About Healthy.io
Healthy.io transforms the smartphone camera into a medical device to deliver healthcare at the speed of life. The company’s at-home urinalysis and digitized wound care services enable providers and healthcare systems to close gaps in access and care while increasing patient satisfaction. Healthy.io is a global leader in digital health and is a recipient of the 2023 MedTech Breakthrough ‘Best In-Home Testing Solution’ Award and the Juniper Research’s Digital Health Innovation ‘Best Digital Diagnostics Solution’ 2023 Award. The company has offices in Boston, London, and Tel-Aviv.

Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1856865/4989347/Healthy_io_Logo.jpg

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/healthyio-wins-top-honor-for-innovations-in-healthcare-at-the-the-6th-annual-digital-health-hub-foundation-awards-at-hlth-302287386.html

SOURCE Healthy.io

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Yesterday, in Los Angeles, Lightspark hosted its first Partner Summit—Lightspark Sync.

Lightspark announced:

Two new foundational capabilities for UMA – UMA Auth and UMA RequestOne Lightspark product update – Lightspark Extend for UMASpark: A new open-source Bitcoin Layer 2, Lightning-compatible solution for stablecoins and self-custodial wallets

Lightspark is building the fastest global open payment network on Bitcoin. Their products simplify, streamline, and modernize the flow of global payments, whether using fiat currencies, stablecoins, or bitcoin.

Exciting updates for the Universal Money Address (UMA). UMA is an open-source messaging standard built on LNURL. Think of it as email but for money. It’s a solution that enables transactions in fiat currency, stablecoin, or form of value that any human, business, or AI agent needs to move or exchange in real-time.

By the end of 2024, Lightspark estimates their partners will unlock UMA for nearly 300 million customers in 140 countries and 100 currencies.

UMA Auth is like OAuth for money. For businesses, it’s an exciting new extension integrating payments directly into applications and services.

It’s an open standard built on Nostr Wallet Connect that enables UMA-enabled wallets to delegate the push and pull of money with limits set by the user. For businesses, it’s an exciting new extension integrating payments directly into applications and services.

Even in today’s digital economy, payments on commerce platforms, content services, and messaging applications are challenging. Payment integrations can be complicated, taking up valuable development time and resources that can be used elsewhere. High transaction fees can eat into profits, and slow settlement times frustrate users and create risk. International payments add another level of complexity. These problems have been holding businesses back for far too long. UMA Auth solves many of these problems while providing users with easy linking to their existing financial apps and wallets.

At its core, UMA Auth is a two-way connection between platforms and their users’ UMA-enabled wallets.  It takes the great features of OAuth and applies them to the world of UMA payments, making secure authorization easier. Now, users can log in to their wallets and authorize UMA payments using familiar set-up experiences. Users can control what applications can access their wallets, specify permitted actions, and set spending limits for each application.  The potential use cases are far-reaching – UMA Auth enables bank accounts or wallets to be connected to messaging and email apps; for example, users can make payments to content creators (no matter where they are) with live tipping or recurring payments and subscriptions. Like Oauth, UMA Auth does not require platform partners to be in the flow of funds but, instead provides a seamless payment experience for users with the UMA-enabled wallet of their choice.

UMA Auth is built using Nostr Wallet Connect, a secure, open protocol that’s gained significant traction in the Nostr and Lightning communities and simplifies connecting wallets to apps. Lightspark worked with the Nostr community and the team at Alby to build on the protocol, extending Nostr Wallet Connect to support UMA features. Some new key enhancements Lightspark has proposed are cross-currency support and client app registration.

UMA Auth brings a new level of innovation to Lightning, making payments more open, interoperable, and user-friendly. It’s a big step forward in building a payment ecosystem that puts users first and opens up many possibilities for peer-to-peer transactions. Lightspark released SDKs that make it incredibly easy for businesses to integrate UMA Auth into their applications.

UMA Request. Built for UMA, this will allow any business or UMA-enabled wallet to request a payment from another wallet on the network. UMA invoices and payment requests will transform transactions for both businesses and individuals. Merchants or service providers can now quickly request customer payments by creating a one-time invoice for a product or service. This invoice can be paid multiple times, making it incredibly flexible for the business and the end users. One of the standout features of this system is that it provides proof of payment, ensuring that both parties have a clear record of the transaction. UMA Request is versatile enough to handle a variety of use cases. Whether requesting payments from friends for a shared expense, managing merchant checkouts, or handling bills from service providers, UMA Request provides a simple and effective way to facilitate transactions across different scenarios.

Lightspark Extend This is a significant step forward, enabling Lightning payouts to bank accounts over domestic payment rails. It reduces transaction times and costs and simplifies payments. Companies can pay out users at their preferred endpoints with instant, seamless fiat currency transfers from local bank accounts to any eligible account in the user’s chosen currency. In the United States, users can instantly receive USD from a Real-Time Payments-enabled local bank account. Lightspark Extend for the US and Mexico will be available by the end of the year, and Brazil will quickly follow. Lightspark Extend offers competitive pricing and unparalleled efficiency for businesses and individuals to send payments, ensuring that moving funds is faster and more cost-effective than ever.

INTRODUCING SPARK –
A SOLUTION FOR STABLECOINS AND SELF-CUSTODY ON BITCOIN
Lightspark believes the future of payments must be on the most open, neutral, and decentralized network and should also enable all use cases – from non-custodial wallets to stablecoins. Spark is a new, payments-focused, high-performance, open-source, scaleable Bitcoin Layer 2. It extends Bitcoin and Lightning and enables self-custodial wallets to send and receive real-time payments at virtually no cost. Spark also supports tokens such as stablecoins, making it the most comprehensive open payment network built on Bitcoin.

Lightspark is committed to powering a new generation of payment solutions. Their products are built with regulated financial service firms in mind. They offer tools for direct, secure messaging between payment counterparties so that their partners can support a range of customer payment experiences and address risk management, AML/CFT, sanctions, travel rules, and other requirements.

Media Contact
press@lightspark.com

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lightspark-announces-uma-auth-uma-request-updates-to-extend-and-spark-at-lightspark-sync-302287198.html

SOURCE Lightspark

Connecting North American Investors and Entrepreneurs, NAVER D2SF to “actively discover North American startups and promote global synergy.”Strengthening support from networking with local investors and entrepreneurs, attracting investment to promoting, “NAVER D2SF will be a bridge between North America and Asia.”

SEONGNAM, South Korea, Oct. 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — On the 24th (local time), NAVER D2SF held a networking meetup for local investors and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, expressing its ambition to serve as a gateway for startups seeking global market expansion.

Since its launch in 2015, NAVER D2SF has made significant investments in 110 early technology startups, aiming for NAVER’s Corporate Venturing (CV). NAVER D2SF has facilitated connections between approximately 1,700 startups, including its portfolio companies, and various organizations of NAVER. It has created strategic synergy between NAVER and startups by deriving more than 210 agendas for collaboration. In September, NAVER D2SF started to expand its reach into the North American market by investing in two startups based on America: “Claythis,” a 3D-content generation startup, and “YesPlz,” an AI-powered fashion search and recommendation startup.

Through this meetup, NAVER D2SF aims to enhance synergy in NAVER’s global business and technology strategies by discovering and investing in local startups in North America. At the same time, it seeks to establish a network of local companies, investors, and entrepreneurs to serve as a gateway, facilitating the global growth of startups by supporting North American startups’ entry into Asia and Korean startups’ expansion into North America. NAVER D2SF also plans to strengthen support for attracting follow-up investment, as well as global promotion and marketing.

“Amid intensifying global competition in technologies such as AI and robotics, the global market expansion of startups has become essential,” said Yang Sang-hwan, head of NAVER D2SF. “Leveraging NAVER’s global business and technological achievements, we aim to help startups enter the global market and foster synergies between NAVER and startups across borders.”

YJ Park of NAVER D2SF, who leads startup discovery and investment of startups in North America, said, “D2SF has already been engaging with many local startups, and they are showing strong interest in the Asian market.” Park added that the company “will actively invest to any startup interested in the Asian market or capable of creating synergy with NAVER, regardless of nationality or race background – not just Korean startups founded in North America.“

Meanwhile, NAVER D2SF is openly recruiting new investment candidates from both domestic and North American startups through its website, and has also established office hours to facilitate more diverse networking opportunities. 

About NAVER

Founded in 1999, NAVER is Korea’s largest Internet company. It operates No.1 search engine in Korea ‘NAVER’ and the nation’s No.1 e-commerce platform, as well as other global online services such as LINE mobile messenger, Webtoon and Webnovel publishing, SNOW video camera app and ZEPETO metaverse platform.

In addition to its own offerings, NAVER is building a strong global business portfolio through partnerships with industry-leading companies, including Softbank, Poshmark, and Wattpad.

NAVER recorded sales of KRW 9.6 trillion (USD 6.9 billion) in 2023. The company invests approximately 25% of its annual sales on R&D projects, pursuing innovation through continuous research and development of future technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous driving technologies.

To learn more, visit www.navercorp.com/en 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/naver-d2sf-to-invest-in-north-american-startups-to-become-a-gateway-between-north-america-and-asia-302287078.html

SOURCE NAVER